It's Dan Patrick's calendar starting Monday

In a sign of how quickly Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick wants to move his so-called “Texas Privacy Act,” also known as the bathroom bill, out of the Senate, he wants to make it a marquee event as soon as he is able to.

It joins a host of other measures the Texas Senate plans to take up next week, which is the first time, per state law, that the full 31-member chamber can cast votes on issues not designated as emergencies by Gov. Greg Abbott. Legislators are barred from taking up non-emergency items before the first 60 days of a regular legislative session. That means that March 13 marks the moment this session when the Senate will assume much more power in determining its agenda, and in beginning to chart its confrontations with the House.

Last week, Patrick wanted everyone to know that the Senate voted out all four of Abbott’s emergency items, which also included reforming Child Protective Services, readying Texas for a Convention of States, and overhauling ethics rules for elected officials.

“Today, I am proud to announce that the Texas Senate has voted on and passed legislation addressing all of these critical emergency issues,” Patrick said in a March 1 statement. “I applaud our hard-working senators who moved swiftly and are committed to a conservative agenda that upholds the principles and values Texas voters have tasked us to protect.”

With that behind him – and eager to remind that the House has passed only one of Abbott’s items – Patrick now can turn his attention to all the proposals he wishes were on the governor’s short list. Chief among them: Senate Bill 6, the proposal that would restrict transgender people's access to bathrooms, changing rooms, and locker rooms in government-owned buildings. This week, the State Affairs Committee heard nearly 20 hours of testimony on the bill in a hearing that drew more than 400 witnesses to the Capitol, with the vast majority in opposition.

Patrick has other big-ticket items that his allies can shepherd through committee and, as of Monday, get to the Senate floor relatively quickly, such as legislation on abortion and property tax cuts.

SB 6 is different, however.

Until recently, Patrick reportedly did not have the required 19 votes from senators to bring the measure to the full chamber. Couple that with the fact that House lawmakers, many of whom are Republicans, are staunchly against the bill, and weeks of speculation about the fate of SB 6 was stalling any momentum it may have had.

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Then, this week, Patrick announced that he won over a Democrat, Sen. Eddie Lucio of Brownsville, pushing support for SB 6 over the threshold and allowing Patrick to place it on the calendar for Monday. Lucio’s support could not have come at a better time.

While the daily calendar can change in a moment’s notice, there is no denying that this particular priority of the lieutenant governor’s still is alive for now. It is on its way to getting further than many political observers thought it would, thanks, in no small part, to the now-wide open Senate calendar.